


Peace in My Katra

by BC_Brynn



Category: Naruto, Star Trek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, BAMF Hatake Kakashi, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Itachi Does What He Wants, M/M, Madara Gets Screwed By Biology, Pon Farr, Sasuke Believes In Logic, Surakian Philosophy, Telsu, Vulcan!Itachi, Vulcan!Madara, Vulcan!Obito, Vulcan!Sasuke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-23 08:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13783941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BC_Brynn/pseuds/BC_Brynn
Summary: The Uchiha Clan are the descendants of crash-landed Vulcans.Two words: pon farr.





	1. The Beginning of Wisdom

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t even know, okay? This is what happens when you’re writing Naruto (yes, I am working on TYN, I promise) but reading Star Trek, and the parallels start stacking up until the tension breaks.
> 
> So, you’ve got this group of people who pretend they have no emotions because they feel everything so much more deeply than baseline humans. They practice strict control, because they remember their past of violent clan wars and don’t really want to go back to that. They have eidetic (or as good as) memories and unusual talent for mind-related mojo.
> 
> Oh, and they can form spontaneous weird magic bonds to other people.
> 
> Anyway, there will be four chapters, all are already written and will be uploaded regularly. Enjoy.
> 
> (detailed warnings are in the end note)

Sasuke did not remember it, of course, but he knew that around the time he was born, his parents had chosen Nii-san’s future wife and betrothed them. Nii-san had pointed out the girl to Sasuke, and Sasuke sometimes followed her around the Compound, watching her play and study and help her Mother with chores.

She was pretty enough, but boring. Sasuke hoped his parents would choose someone more interesting for him.

“Your marriage will be what _you_ make of it, little brother,” Nii-san told him then, smiling like he had a secret.

When the day of Sasuke’s seventh birthday arrived, there was no one left to form the betrothal bond, and no one to be bonded to – just an silent Compound with greenish stains where walls and floors had been painted with blood, full of metallic smell that did not seem to leave.

x

There was a boy in Naruto’s class. He used to have a clan, but now he was alone. He liked it that way. Everybody said so. Kiba sneered and called him ‘moldface’ or ‘ice-block’ or ‘pointy-eared bastard’; Shikamaru shrugged when asked, muttered ‘inhuman’ and buried his face in his arms for another nap.

Naruto knew what it was like to be all alone and what it was like to be called names (“Monster!”) so he found the boy during their lunch break.

“Hi!” He crouched on the bench on the other side of the table. “I’m Naruto -ttebayo! Wanna eat lunch with me?”

The boy looked up from his soup – orange soup! the best! Naruto wanted some! – and his eyes were very dark. His face _was_ kinda greenish, like he was having a tummy ache. Naruto liked green, ‘cause plants were green and plants were nice.

Maybe the boy was nice too, just quiet. Like a plant.

“What’s your name?!” asked Naruto.

“Hn,” said the boy, which wasn’t right ‘cause Naruto did actually know that he was called ‘Sasuke’, but the old man always harped on him about manners.

This boy probably didn’t got anybody to harp on him about manners, so he didn’t care, and that made sense.

“Can I try some of your soup-?”

Something weird happened.

Naruto was already reaching out as he asked, ‘cause if they didn’t need manners he could do that, and the boy reflexively raised his hand in a block, and their hands touched.

There was hurt. Not like a tummy ache hurt, but everything, all at once, like broken bones and burn blisters on your back and bleach in your eyes (Naruto pretended not to for the old man, but he always remembered).

His breath wheezed out as he fell off the bench onto the floor and bumped his elbow. It was okay, though. Bumps went away.

What the boy felt wouldn’t go away.

The boy stared at his own hand, looking sorta terrified.

He didn’t say sorry, but Naruto didn’t either, and maybe that was okay, if they owed each other a sorry and decided they were square, so nobody had to say anything out loud.

“What is going on here?!” yelled Daikoku-sensei.

Naruto jumped and tried to run, but he was grabbed by the collar from behind.

“Didn’t I tell you, Uzumaki?! Leave Uchiha-kun alone! Detention after classes end for the day! And I better not see you bothering him again, or there will be _consequences_!”

Swinging from Daikoku-sensei’s hand, Naruto took a glance back over his shoulder. The boy was staring down into his orange soup, not eating, and that was a total waste, ‘cause _orange_ soup. This _so_ was not over.

x

“Here, bastard.”

An object landed on the table next to Sasuke’s plate. It did not appear immediately dangerous, so Sasuke finished dismantling his mango at his leisure and only then redirected his attention to the invasion of his personal space.

It was a classmate with whom Sasuke had had previous brief, undesired contact, which had been cut short through the intervention of Daikoku-sensei.

Sasuke had only met his mind for a moment, but even so he knew more than he had ever wanted. Orphan. Abused – quite severely on some occasions. _Alone_. And yet unyielding and full of incongruous vim.

Determined as Sasuke was to distance himself from all humanity, there was no human inside the village whom he disdained _less_.

“’s gloves,” the classmate explained needlessly. His countenance suggested that rather than giving offence, he was attempting to be helpful.

He was a child. An isolated and ignored one. He could not have known.

Sasuke, allowing himself a measure of curiosity, lifted the cloth items from the table and examined them. They were mildly aesthetically displeasing owing to the colour combination, but considering what the gift-giver was presently wearing, it seemed to be due to inherent lack of taste rather than intention to mock.

“Why?” he demanded.

The classmate rolled his eyes. “So you don’t accidentally mind-whammy someone again, bastard.”

Sasuke stiffened at the reminder of his inexcusable lapse of control. Other Uchiha would have been capable of shielding against his indeliberate mental intrusion, but human minds were open and mostly undefended.

The appropriate response would be an apology for the mental intrusion – but was it not this orange-clad individual that had committed the first intrusion?

“You’re supposed to say ‘thank you’ when someone gives you something!” the classmate complained at a needlessly loud volume.

His outburst attracted the attention of a group of females, who immediately converged upon him with the intention to harass.

“Stupid Naruto! Stop bothering Sasuke-kun!”

“Hey, Sakura-”

“Idiot!”

One of the females punched the orange-wearing boy in the head, and the force of the blow brought him to the floor.

Sasuke turned away and ignored the subsequent pleas for his attention.

For an Uchiha, the need to wear gloves in a social setting was an admission of their lack of control. It was shameful. And yet, Sasuke’s control clearly had deteriorated to the point that an accidental touch might damage his peers – had the recipient been anyone less accustomed to suffering, they might have required trauma counseling for that brief contact.

Then, regardless of how embarrassing it would be, it was Sasuke’s obligation to cover his hands.

He pulled the gloves on; they were not overly uncomfortable.

He (knew that _that man_ would never wear gloves so he) comforted himself with the knowledge that he was motivated by duty and loyalty, and that there was less shame in admitting weakness than in allowing harm to come to others out of baseless pride.

x

There were many hours in a day, and Sasuke could only train for so long before continuing would inflict damage upon himself. Per his routine, at this point he went inside and perused what little of the Clan archives had survived _that man’s_ purge.

His psyche was beginning to show signs of wear. Uchiha were not sociable beings, but they were social. Hours spent in the silent, echoing rooms of his house accumulated, and at some point Sasuke knew his situation was no longer sustainable.

So he left. He let curiosity pull him out of his self-imposed prison, ignored his Father’s voice in his ears – “Humans are inferior to Uchiha in every aspect! They are not acceptable companions!” – and passed through the village. His attire, particularly the dark blue shirt with the Uchiwa, drew a lot of attention, and at various points he avoided socialisation only by releasing bursts of killing intent.

“Hey, you. Whatcha doin’ here?” said the orange-clad boy when Sasuke was contemplating giving up his spurious quest for the day and doing the logical thing, namely asking for his classmate’s address at the Academy tomorrow.

“Good evening,” Sasuke replied, stepping closer to the suspiciously smelling side alley from which the boy had emerged. “Are you presently occupied?”

“Sorta,” said the boy. “But it’s not important.”

That, Sasuke knew, was a lie. Additionally, he was experiencing mild annoyance at being reduced to conceptualising his companion in the as-of-yet privacy of his thoughts, so he dispensed with the maintenance of social barriers and simply settled on the boy’s stated preferred appellation: Naruto.

“If there are errands you need to complete, my purpose is not pressing,” Sasuke offered.

Naruto’s eyes widened. “Whoa, that’s like, more words than I’ve ever heard from you in one go. Than anyone ever heard from you, prolly. You’re alright?”

Sasuke was, in all honesty, debilitatingly bored. This state compounded the rage and grief he could not seem to entirely eradicate, no matter how much effort he put into meditation.

“Were you on your way somewhere?” Sasuke asked, ignoring the question posed to him.

Naruto’s eyes narrowed. He seemed indecisive for some time, and when strangers appeared on the street he retreated further into the shadows.

Sasuke made note of the defensive actions. He had tasted Naruto’s mind, and knew the well-founded fear of pain therein, so he did not insist on further conversation in this venue. “Would you prefer to speak elsewhere?”

“Ain’t got no idea whatcha want,” said Naruto, mangling the language terribly, “but sure. C’mon.”

x

Naruto was suspicious.

He kept glancing over his shoulder at Sasuke, who still by the way had not introduced himself properly, all along the way to his apartment. He was hungry, but no way was he going dumpster diving with a sorta-clan-kid watching him.

Everybody at the Academy would know by tomorrow. Nu-huh.

“What is this place?” asked stick-up-his-butt boy when Naruto walked inside his building and led the way up the stairs. “Do… do people live like this?”

Naruto shrugged. “‘s not like I can afford better. The old man pays for this. I ain’t got any money.”

“Fascinating,” muttered Sasuke.

He went through the exact same reaction once he saw the inside of Naruto’s flat, only this time he didn’t even pretend like he hadn’t just walked into a slum. His chin went up and he stood all uptight in the middle of the room, like he was scared he would catch a disease if he touched anything.

Naruto went to the kitchen to loot through the cupboard. He had last two cup ramen left, and those were meant to be breakfast tomorrow and on Friday, ‘cause the teachers at the Academy got all pissy if his stomach growled during class, but if Sasuke was here that meant Naruto would have to use them both – ‘cause manners…

Or. Were they still not doing manners?

“I,” Sasuke spoke directly behind Naruto’s back, making him jump a foot in the air, “live in the Uchiha Compound.”

Naruto made a gesture like ‘and what?’.

“There are fifteen large entirely empty habitable houses, and one of which I am the sole occupant,” Sasuke added.

Naruto’s jaw dropped. Sure, he knew that Sasuke’s Clan had been killed off, but did he seriously have a whole _city_ for himself with nobody else living there? Why? “Didya forbid other people from living there?”

Sasuke looked over Naruto’s shoulder inside the cupboard and saw the empty shelves and the dusty can of peaches (older than Naruto himself, prolly) stuffed in the very back. “It is complicated. But as I am the sole owner of the Compound, it is my prerogative to allow or forbid anyone from entering it.”

Yeah, no wonder he lived all alone, the cold bastard-

“If you wish, you may move in.”

Okay, that one Naruto didn’t expect. “What? Why?” He looked around. “This ain’t that bad, is it?” It sure beat the orphanage and the streets, but Naruto had never known anything better, so maybe it really was sorta bad?

Sasuke sure seemed to think so.

“You require an _acceptable_ place of living. I own an overabundance of empty living space. In exchange for assistance with upkeep, some of that may be yours. It is only logical.”

Chores, Naruto moaned inside his head. He would have to do _chores_.

But, yeah, maybe there would be hot water like there was in the Academy bathrooms? That would be _so cool_.

Not like it was a hard decision.

“Can I bring my plants?”

x

Itachi failed his self-imposed mission. Instead of killing him, he had merely sent Orochimaru running.

There would be other opportunities, he was sure, but he had squandered his moment of surprise. Next time he might be stronger (if at fourteen he was widely considered unstoppable, what would he be like once puberty finally set in?), but Orochimaru would be prepared…

“Itachi-kun made a right hash of it, he did,” said a half-familiar mocking falsetto from the corridor, before the door of Itachi’s room was pushed open without so much as by-your-leave.

Itachi said nothing. He rolled up the scroll he had been reading and put it out of the way.

There was nothing in his room that could betray his preferences; this base was enemy territory, and the two-katra being that had invaded Itachi’s room was an enemy. Their goals had only aligned for a single night.

“Orochimaru’s reputation does not do him justice,” Itachi replied simply. ‘S-class’ covered such a wide range and array of skill.

Two-katra growled so low that the sound seemed to be coming straight from his chest. He wore the same cloak as the other Akatsuki members – same as the one Itachi had been given and as yet managed not to comment upon. Surely even insanity was not an excuse for designing _impractical_ uniforms?

“Itachi-kun gambled foolishly and lost,” scoffed two-katra, taking a seat – again without invitation.

He had introduced himself as ‘Tobi’ prior to the Purge, but Itachi had already identified the katra in control, and refused to use that juvenile moniker. “What do you want, _Madara-sama_?”

Two-katra laughed, high pitched and disconcerting.

Itachi waited – for a very long while – before the sniggers tapered off, and the creature settled into a semblance of calm.

“Many, many more Uchiha, generations ago,” said the two-katra. “But even at my time the Elders did not remember the truth. Forgot, forgot, got their hot-air balloon heads blown off, heh. For _got_ while the for _getting_ got good. The Clan had tried to erase its own past, so Tobi’s gotta believe there was some great shame in it.”

“Or great tragedy,” Itachi pointed out.

“Tragedies spawn martyrs and idolatry. It’s shame drives people to seeking oblivion. Ob- _live_ -yon. Lunatics.”

Itachi experienced a widespread crawling sensation at the touch of that demented creature’s chakra. He suppressed a shudder.

This had once been an Uchiha – two Uchiha, in fact – but whatever this thing was, Itachi did not count it as a clansman anymore.

Uchiha had kept among themselves; even among shinobi, who changed themselves way beyond the limits of humanity and honed odd traits into becoming bloodline limits, the Uchiha stood apart. ‘Inhuman’ was one of the nicest descriptions. ‘Demons’ and ‘oni’ were also frequently repeated.

Clan History spoke of being descended from a son of the Sage of Six Paths, but a very quiet Clan legend, mostly perpetuated among children and scorned by the adults as ridiculous, mentioned arriving to this planet in space-faring ship. There had been a few, curious, scattered artifacts in the Clan’s repository that might have been the legacy of a lost advanced civilisation, but nothing whatsoever in writing or even pictures that would feature space travel.

Now, watching this abomination, Itachi became yet more determined to discover the truth of the Uchiha’s origin.

Two-katra jauntily hopped to his feet and made a sweeping theatrical gesture toward the door. “Tobi has a mission for Itachi-kun! Come, Tobi will introduce Itachi-kun to his shark-y partner!”


	2. The Needs of the Few

“Chewed on! The leaves are _chewed on_!”

Sasuke raised his head from his homework and waited until Naruto appeared in the doorway. “What is the source of your present aggravation?”

“You chewed on my plants again! How could you, bastard?! Are you colourblind? They’re practically your species! Repeat after me: a plant is a friend, not food-”

“You are lucky I tolerate your carnivorousness inside my parents’ house,” Sasuke pointed out dryly.

“Go eat the grass outside or something!” Naruto exclaimed. “Just stay away from my plants, you cannibal!”

x

The roof garden restaurant was in the perfect location; it offered its customers the vantage point to look over the walls of the mostly deserted Uchiha Compound. A dedicated observer could see a slice of a yard in between the empty buildings; once in a while a boy appeared within that space, training hard.

A group of girls sat around a table, chairs shifted so they could all stare in that direction.

“I… I thought all Uchiha got betrothed really young. But Sasuke-kun just doesn’t seem interested.”

Ino frowned at her sundae. “Mommy said they usually did it by the time they finished the Academy at the latest. Finally got married around twenty or so. But it was probably easier when they could rely on the clan to support them if the marriage didn’t work that great. Sasuke-kun will have to be very careful about picking a wife. They will be all alone.” She pouted. “Which is why he will undoubtedly realise who is his perfect bride and pick me.”

“Can he even have kids with… you know. A red-blooded girl?” pointed out Sakura, flattening her fringe over her forehead.

“No idea. I think there’s some research being done at the R&D, but nobody’s saying anything.”

“It would suck.” Ayaka sighed and looked away into the distance. “I want a baby with his eyebrows.”

And several dreamy voices replied: “I know, right?”

x

“Sasuke-kun!” Ino called out, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Can I sit with you?”

“Can _we_ sit with you?” Sakura corrected, arriving half a step behind her, clutching her special sparkly notebook to her chest.

Naruto shrugged. “There’s enough room at the table, but we’re kinda in the middle of something here-”

“I asked Sasuke-kun, you dolt!” snapped Ino, and turned to Sasuke.

Naruto looked up from the scroll spread between his and Sasuke’s bento boxes. He didn’t really expect Sasuke to raise his head and share an understanding look, but he still kept wishing. Apparently, understanding looks were ‘illogical’ (and ,yeah, Naruto couldn’t really think that word without imagining it in all sorts of mocking voices), even though their classmates had had three years now to get used to the fact that Naruto actually _did_ speak for Sasuke whenever Sasuke considered their company to be beneath him.

Which was – you guessed it – _always_. Sasuke was genetically incapable of _not_ being a snob.

Naruto still had no clue what made him half-immune to that automatic dismissal, but he wasn’t going to poke at _this_ sleeping bear, ‘cause Sasuke housed him, fed him, _clothed_ him and, yeah, _taught_ him stuff. From the Uchiha point of view, Naruto was ‘a retainer’, which was like a servant, but one with perks.

Sure beat where he was living before.

“Ino, when did being a bitch to me help you get Sasuke’s attention?” Naruto asked.

This was one of those perks of being ‘a retainer’. He was, politically speaking, an Uchiha. So he got to diss most of the other clans, as long as he did it in his lord and master’s name, which was perfectly fine, ‘cause Sasuke thought Ino was basically a walking mushroom, so at worst he grumbled at Naruto for being _too nice_.

“Thanks,” said Sakura and sit down next to Sasuke, remaining at an almost respectful distance, because Sasuke was known to use chopsticks to defend his personal bubble.

She opened the notebook and wrote down a couple of columns of characters.

Naruto suspected that Sakura was a little smarter than Ino and let Ino win their contests so that Ino could address Sasuke and get dissed by Naruto first. Then Sakura gauged the situation, and took advantage of it if she could.

The last empty spot at the table, the one next to Naruto, was filled by Shino before Ino could make a move toward it.

Shino was a semi-regular lunch buddy, for the simple reason that he shared a lot of traits with Sasuke. They both thought that ninety-nine per cent of all people were too stupid to deserve to live, and it was a horrible imposition to expect them – that was, expect Sasuke and Shino – to deal with the stupid on a daily basis.

Like, Naruto knew he counted as stupid in their worldview, but they kept infecting him with stuff like vocabulary and basic math and _clan politics_ , and by now he was sort of in that grey area of ‘mostly tolerable’.

No, really, Sasuke just didn’t want to do his own laundry. Or wash his own dishes. That was the secret.

Ino totally could have been living in the Uchiha Compound by now if she had gotten herself disinherited, knocked around for a bit, and then volunteered to do housework.

Not that Naruto would be cluing her in.

x

Sasuke despised the Hokage’s visits, but he did not want to deal with the ramifications of trying to keep the leader of the village out of the Compound, so he retreated into his Father’s office.

His Father had come from a line of pragmatic men, so there was sealwork spread throughout the house that enabled him to listen to any room that he chose to focus on.

“...but, Naruto-kun, wouldn’t you prefer to be on the team you deserve? Your marks have improved again this year and-”

“Whatcha talking ‘bout, old man?” exclaimed Naruto, reverting to his more childish behaviour, more atrocious grammar and appearance of aggravating ignorance. “I got _better_ , so I _don’t_ deserve to be on a team with Sasuke?”

Well played, Sasuke conceded.

His impetuous decision to seek out his classmate, and a yet more impetuous one to install him within this house had turned out to be profitable. Naruto’s vexing, loud personality hid an unpolished yet unexpectedly competent shinobi underneath.

Sasuke had had to take a figurative chisel to him in the beginning of their association, but since then he had been reaping benefits.

“That is not what I meant, Naruto-kun,” cajoled the Sandaime. “You could be on a team with Hinata-chan – wouldn’t you like that?”

Amateur, Sasuke thought disdainfully. Naruto accepted Hinata because Sasuke tolerated her, and Sasuke tolerated her because she was quiet, submissive and perceptive enough to not be a nuisance (and perhaps the fact that she was unabashedly kind to Naruto had been taken into account as well, but Sasuke was not inclined to acknowledge this point).

“Umm… can I be on team with Sasuke _and_ Hinata? I guess I’d like that a bunch!”

Sasuke’s control nearly lapsed as the impulse to laugh welled within him. He doubted the Hokage would go along with this, but the mere idea was pleasant.

Sadly, Sasuke by a wide margin outperformed everyone else in the class. The goal was to create ‘balanced teams’ (or whatever the appeasement of major clans was called today), and Hinata was simply a little too competent and far too Hyuuga.

The Hokage heaved a very heavy and very satisfying sigh. “I shall see what I can do, Naruto-kun. Now, last time you mentioned you were interested in getting a new plant. How about we go and pick one up for you…”

Sasuke deactivated the seal and carded his fingers through his hair. He wished he could do more to ensure his and Naruto’s co-assignment, but logic dictated that at this point any action he might take would be to the detriment of his objective.

x

“So,” Naruto said, setting out the bowls and grasses and chopsticks for their late, late dinner, “the reason why people call you a demon is ‘cause you’ve got green blood.”

“Is there a point to you stating the obvious?” asked Sasuke, critically inspecting the rice.

“The reason why people call _me_ a demon is I’ve got one sealed in my belly. Old man Hokage told me. I think he wanted me to tell you so you would ditch me.”

Sasuke’s head shot up and his narrowed eyes first locked on Naruto’s face and then moved to try and dissect his belly. “Yondaime…?” he guessed.

Naruto nodded.

Sasuke nodded back. “One of Suraku’s tenets: the philosophy of sacrifice. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few – or of the one.”

Naruto shrugged. “I just wanna see if I can make friends with it. I befriended _you_ , so making another demon friend can’t be that hard, right? ‘sides, how awesome would that be?”

x

Kakashi had gotten the Uchiha. There was not even a debate. Nobody wanted to touch that ticking bomb with a poleax, so they pushed it at him and hoped that it would take him out when it blew.

Kakashi woke up every day with the same optimistic notion that his faith in humankind might have already hit rock bottom. On most days he was disappointed.

He surveyed the three disasters sitting opposite him on the weirdly orchard-like roof of the Academy, and lazily rolled his head to the side. “You start-”

Kakashi was about to say ‘broody’, but there was a line between taking his future students down a peg and inspiring a passive aggressive Uchiha to take recalcitrance as a challenge.

“-Sasuke-kun.”

“Hn,” said Sasuke, and there was enough of an inflection in it for Kakashi to interpret, but every Uchiha had their own set of signals, so it would take him some time to learn to decipher the meanings.

Naruto sat up straighter. “Sasuke likes eating tomatoes ‘cause it lets him imagine they’re the hearts of his enemies-”

“I asked Sasuke-kun,” Kakashi cut him off. He had been warned about codependence, but there was a difference between _codependence_ and _laziness with conceit sprinkled on top_.

“Um, sensei…” Sakura piped up uncertainly, “Naruto always speaks for Sasuke-kun.”

“Yep,” the blond agreed happily. “On account of I’m his retainer!”

It would have been cute, if it was not a teetering tower of future problems about to fall on top of Kakashi’s head, and he was not playing along with _this_. “And I am Sasuke-kun’s superior officer, who just gave him an order.”

Sasuke favoured Kakashi with a look that examined the use of ‘superior’ and found it inappropriate, but then he raised his chin and said: “Uchiha Sasuke. Likes and disliked are illogical. Training is a favoured activity. I do not dream; if you require confirmation, the relevant medical file is available to anyone with clearance equivalent to A-rank or higher.”

Kakashi should have known that bit of semantics would bite him. Minato-sensei had had it so much easier. Obito had not done any of the typical Uchiha crap.

“Personal goals, then?” Kakashi re-stated.

A pair of black eyes closely watched him from under a black fringe. Then Sasuke said: “None that I would care to disclose,” and looked away in clear dismissal.

Well, Kakashi mused, this was a mess. Sasuke would not submit to him; he would only go along for as long as Kakashi was useful to him, and then he would cut himself free. Naruto – damn it, Kakashi had hoped that Naruto would not follow Sasuke, but as it looked now that was a lost cause, too.

He swallowed a curse. “You, Naruto-kun?”

“Ehehe…” The boy rubbed the back of his neck in a show of embarrassment. “I sorta like shogi, even though it’s super complicated, but I hate sitting still for hours and hours until the bastard finally makes a move, and why don’t you just play Shikamaru, at least he might have a chance of trashing you-”

“Hn,” said Sasuke, but there was a general air of amusement around him.

“Bastard. Anyway, I love ramen, ramen is the best, and the greatest disappointment of my life is that plomeek soup is really kinda gross. It’s not fair! How can something orange be so… so… _ugh_!”

Sasuke’s left eyebrow rose ever so slightly.

“Ain’t got time for hobbies.”

“Dreams?” inquired Kakashi, already seeing the swift combustion of this mockery of the team on the horizon.

Naruto looked at Sasuke, but if he was seeking a confirmation he did not get anything, since the Uchiha was busy gazing into distance and looking uninvolved.

“Dunno. It’s all kinda hazy – something with comfort and acceptance and maybe happiness, too. Got time to figure it out, neh, sensei?”

Kakashi… actually did not have a counterargument to that. At least not one that was not constructed from defensive sardonic crap. “Sakura-chan?”

Sakura closed the notebook in which she had been scribbling. She, too, looked at Sasuke first. Then she sighed deeply and turned liquid green eyes to Kakashi.

x

“I’m not just your retainer anymore, am I?” Naruto asked quietly, collecting their used cups, while Sasuke poured himself out of the sofa to go to the bathroom.

“Hn?” Sasuke inquired, pausing at the foot of the staircase.

Naruto shrugged. “This teammate thing. I’m not saying it takes precedence – it doesn’t – but does it mean something? Or are there just _two_ members of Team Seven?”’ ‘Am I essentially your baggage?’ he wondered. He had not forgotten that there were worse things to be, but it still made chest ache.

“If you were dead weight, carrying you on missions would be illogical,” Sasuke replied, and ascended off.

Naruto grinned.

x

Sasuke caught the attacking ninja’s forearm, shattered his radius and ulna with a tightening of fingers and, with some small aid of the attacker’s momentum, threw him over his head and face first into the ground. And stomped on the back of the nukenin’s neck.

_Crack_.

Problem solved.

“Fucking Uchiha!” shouted the other nukenin and tried to escape, but at that point Sasuke had already severed his spinal column with a well placed and sufficiently overpowered kunai stab.

“Brutal!” Naruto exclaimed with undisguised awe. “You’ve gotta teach me that, bastard-”

“Sasuke-kun has naturally three times your strength, idiot! You’ll never catch up to him-”

“Maa, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi cut in, appearing out of nowhere, somehow not cut up into pieces, “that’s not exactly right. But it would take a lot of work and a lot better chakra control than Naruto has achieved so far.”

“Thanks for your help, sensei,” Naruto said sarcastically, sidling up to Sasuke to make it clear that he was not being hypocritical, rather he was speaking _for Sasuke_ , as if Sasuke had ever invited any such idiocy into his life.

But Sasuke did not protest. Kakashi-sensei would offer some inane mockery of an explanation, and Naruto would use the resultant frustration as an excuse to make a spectacle of himself. Predictable. Illogical. Boring.

“Maa, Tazuna-san,” said Kakashi, scratching his mask-covered chin, “how about you explain the parts you left out before I decide to let Sasuke-kun here eat you?”

Sakura made a hacking sound and proceeded to asphyxiate; Naruto grinned in his customary somewhat insane manner, and Sasuke impassively watched as his Clan’s ludicrously incorrect reputation was misused to inflict psychological torture on a civilian.

He wondered how the collective humanity just missed the fact that the Uchiha were _vegetarian_.

x

Sasuke kept shivering in the aftermath of all the ice techniques used on him – bastard couldn’t stand cold any better than any other cold-blooded thing. Which was a pun that Naruto found absolutely hilarious, only he was a little too busy – not dying while at the same time coughing up what felt like half of his insides – to laugh.

Battles sucked. Getting ice-senbon’d hurt. And somebody had ripped up his favourite t-shirt.

Naruto hadn’t been conscious for it, but he knew it was Sasuke. Sasuke didn’t agree with Naruto’s philosophy of honouring the Uchiha ways by wearing the inverted colour scheme. Like, if Sasuke wanted to run around in white pants and a blue shirt, what was the problem with Naruto wearing black and orange?

“You should strive to keep your inferior iron-based blood inside your body,” Sasuke said mock-helpfully.

Naruto decided to take that as Sasuke tearfully admitting that he had been worried and was glad that Naruto would be fine despite facing a strong enemy like Haku and damn near bleeding out because Sasuke used him as a meat shield.

“Um,” Sakura spoke from where she was standing next to the shell-shocked and gibbering old man, “I think Zabuza-san killed off the rest of the mercenaries before he died, so we can go back to the house. If that’s okay with you, Tazuna-san?”

The old man gibbered some more.

Sasuke hauled Naruto up – gloved hand clenched tightly enough around Naruto’s wrist to leave bruises, only the demon would heal them about as fast as Naruto could complain – and helped him stagger down the blood-coated bridge to the shore of Wave country.

“I thought getting pissed off was illogical,” Naruto grumped through clenched teeth, ‘cause moving kinda hurt and Sasuke wasn’t exactly being gentle as he hauled Naruto’s half-naked, still-bleeding arse along. The amount of fire damage all around was impressive and, also, Haku’s lump-of-coal corpse was still smoking a bit.

Naruto had _extrapolated_ (which was exactly like guessing, only permitted in the Uchiha household).

One of the slanted eyebrows rose and Sasuke gave him a sideways stink-eye. “I simply favoured the expedient solution to our problem.”

Sakura, trailing behind them, tripped over a dismembered arm, because she was too busy furiously writing in her sparkly notebook.

Naruto needed to get his hands on that.

x

“Tobi has no more missions for Itachi-kun right now! Maybe Itachi-kun wants to go do something _fun_? Tobi heard Sasuke-kun was sighted in Wave and-”

“My brother is presently safe in Konoha,” Itachi cut in, irrationally irritated by the Akatsuki Leader’s _silly_ game. He discarded his stained weapons into a pile and turned to face his host’s orange mask. “He will remain so until _he_ chooses to walk way. You made the choice for us once, _Madara-sama_. Now it is ours to make.”

Perhaps he should have refrained from naming the dominant katra again, but he hoped for half-intelligent dialogue, and no such thing could be had with the ‘Tobi’ avatar.

It took a while, but eventually the two-katra’ posture changed. The creature removed the mask, revealing a face of which half was horrifically scarred. Then he neatly by-passed Itachi, careful to avoid physically touching him, and inspected the heap of used weaponry Itachi had taken pains to collect.

“I made a mistake giving in to Hashirama’s cajoling,” two-katra admitted. He picked up a shuriken, rolled it across his knuckles and let it vanish as civilian magicians would do with a coin. The skill involved in not cutting oneself during that trick was considerable. “We never should have joined the village.”

“Why did you give in?” Itachi asked, grasping onto the first sign of seriousness he had detected from the man who might have been holding all their lives in his hands (one pale, the other perpetually gloved).

The two-katra turned his head away. He stared _through_ the wall, into the distance. “Our numbers were dwindling. I hoped that within peace we could… survive.”

Such hopes, and then he had aided Itachi in the Purge?

No, there must have been more. Something private that Itachi’s ancestor could not bear to bare.

“They betrayed me.” The two-katra shuddered. Faster than an attacking snake, his hand shot out and gripped Itachi’s shoulder (which Itachi only allowed because he wished to hear more). “They betrayed me – _me_ , who had done so much for them! One thing I needed from my own Clan-”

Not the Senju? The betrayal had come from _the Uchiha_? Itachi had not anticipated that.

“-one single thing, and they all turned away in disgust! Left Tobi to burn!” His voice rose gradually higher; the last word grew into a shriek: “Tobi is a good boooy!”

The spastically squeezing fingers on Itachi’s shoulder would have broken the joint if Itachi were human.

Two-katra took several deep, slow breaths, and then the hand on Itachi’s shoulder jerked, turning him around. “I know why Danzo wanted our Clan dead. I know why I did. Why did _you_ , Itachi-kun?”

“Our numbers continued dwindling _despite_ peace,” Itachi stated.

Aside from the instance of his enforced betrothal, Itachi had been too young to be subjected to any of the increasingly desperate mandates, but he could see their effects all around him. Women made to bear children they did not wish for, widows forcibly remarried mere days after their husbands’ deaths, the odd changes within the Compound as there suddenly were as many children as adults, and then twice as many children. And then, to control all those children, stricter rules and measures were employed.

The atmosphere inside the Uchiha Compound had been barely less toxic than that of the Root. It was at this point that Itachi discovered the Elders’ plan – the reason for the sudden enforced population boom. “The Clan was about to resort to methods that crossed the lines of acceptability.”

Considering that involuntary breeding programs already were the norm, these methods were more gruesome than a remotely sane mind could imagine. Itachi would have preferred never to have learnt of them.

“What were they going to do?” asked the two-katra, head curiously tilted to the side in a gesture typical for ‘Tobi’. He finally retracted his hand.

“They,” Itachi said, feeling his nails cut into the calloused skin of his palms, “were going to make the youngest generation freely available to Orochimaru in return for the results of his research.”

The terribly scarred face of the two-katra twisted, and Itachi knew he would not have to explain the Elders’ reasoning.

Two-katra could clearly infer it, and felt so moved as to use sarcasm: “Because _that_ was logical.”


	3. Live Long and Prosper

By the time Naruto got back from killing the huge – like really humongously gigantic – snake, Sakura was lying on top of a prone Sasuke, and Sasuke wasn’t protesting.

“Is he…?” ‘Dead,’ Naruto thought, ‘cause that was the only way Sasuke would be caught cuddling with Fangirl Number Two…

…and suddenly everything felt terribly cold and sad and colourless.

“N-no,” sniffled Sakura. “He’s in coma? I guess? It’s the seal-” She pulled away far enough that Naruto could see a sprawling tattoo-like thing all over Sasuke’s neck. “-and we need to get him to a medic nin as fast as possible!”

Naruto pulled Sakura off of the bastard, slung the bastard over his shoulder and scowled at the forest. “Let’s go. If someone tries to attack us, get over yourself and _kill them_.

x

“A trance…?” Sakura repeated, staring at the back of the ANBU who was examining Sasuke’s neck.

They had given their reports while an actual _ANBU medic_ worked on Sasuke, only to find out that there was _nothing to be done_ , and Naruto had been about to start yelling and threatening people (that would have been _stupid_ , but it was about _the bastard_ so who _cared_?) when old man Hokage appeared with this new ANBU.

“The Uchiha have a strange quirk,” explained Kakashi-sensei. “When they are seriously injured, their bodies shut down to imitate a death state.”

“The seal thinks he’s dead; it’s already begun deteriorating,” the ANBU said cheerfully. “Sloppy, _sensei_ , sloppy…”

“Sasuke’s body is redirecting all its energy into healing itself. He will be perfectly fine,” Kakashi-sensei assured them.

Naruto would have pointed out that the bastard had never been perfectly fine, and it was a part of his charm, but he bit his tongue instead.

Sakura, next to him, had her sparkly notebook propped on her thighs and was scribbling furiously.

Naruto leaned over to have a look at what she was writing-

“Sod off, idiot!”

-and just barely dodged a fist to the head.

x

Kakashi had too many secrets to count, so this one got lost among the others easily. No one took his idiosyncrasies seriously, so when he casually mentioned he was ‘talking to Obito’, they rolled their eyes and dismissed it as ‘one of those things’ or looked at him with pity for having lost so many people that he would have to resort to such extreme mourning rituals.

But there was a presence in Kakashi’s mind, and it had been there since he was thirteen. It may have been an imprint, but from what Shisui had been willing to hint at around him, Kakashi did not think so.

He had seen what broken bonds did to people (he only had to look at Sasuke). So if this phantom presence inside his head was a source of _comfort_ , either Kakashi was insane beyond what anyone suspected (plausible) or Obito _was not dead_.

“Do you have any active bonds?” Kakashi asked on one evening, after Sasuke exhausted himself training for the third stage of the chuunin exam. It was late, Sasuke was tired and stuffed with endorphins from exertion and pain both, and it was as good a time as any to inquire.

Sasuke did not reply verbally, but his shoulders went rigid.

“Ah.” Kakashi nodded sagely. “It wouldn’t break?”

“No matter how hard I tried,” Sasuke admitted, eyes trained on the orange flames of their campfire greedily licking at wood. “But he was always far more adept at the mind arts than I.”

Kakashi suppressed a sigh. With any other child he might have tried to offer physical comfort, unpracticed as he was at it, but with an Uchiha… even ruffling his hair might have led to transference, and that was a violation Kakashi would not perpetrate.

There was a reason why Sasuke wore gloves (with telling orange lining of the cuffs, even though he tried to hide it under long sleeves and bandages), and that was a declaration Kakashi would respect for as long as Sasuke’s life wasn’t in immediate danger.

“I do not know what you heard, but he cannot see through my eyes-”

Kakashi snorted, cutting off his student’s superfluous defensive rant ( _statement_ , but from a boy whose idea of a sentence was ‘hn’, an actual sentence counted as a rant).

And Sasuke was wrong. Kakashi could not even begin to pretend that he had any idea what might have been going through Itachi-kouhai’s head when he abolished his own Clan with terrifying swiftness and thoroughness, but if Itachi had truly wanted his brother incapacitated, he could have done it far more easily by breaking that last bond that tethered his sanity.

“He intended it as a reminder,” Sasuke said fatalistically, dark eyes coloured orange by the fire reflected in them, “to live a wretched life.”

“That a quote?” Kakashi quipped.

“Paraphrase. I do consider it a reminder. This way, I shall never forget the taste of terror.”

As if Sasuke would ever truly forget anything. But this way he would never put it out of his mind for even a second, and then of course he was overfocused to the point of tunnel vision; it was a miracle he even acknowledged Naruto at all. Sakura remained a nonentity to him.

Kakashi wished Obito would just get over himself finally and come back home.

x

They defeated an invasion attempt. Sasuke still momentarily succumbed to incredulity, but internalisation was merely a matter of time.

“Just go t’sleep ‘lready,” mumbled Naruto, rolling over to his other side on the futon he had dragged to Sasuke’s room, making up some less than cogent argumentation that amounted to ‘I would prefer not to be alone’.

His hair appeared to shine silvery in the sparse starlight.

Sasuke closed his eyes to eliminate the visual input. His resolve to pursue his own goals had somehow changed into an excruciating dilemma, and it was all Naruto’s fault.

Kakashi had interrogated Sasuke about his familial bond with _that man_ , which continued existing, even though Sasuke had been staunchly maintaining a block on it over the course of the past seven years. Sasuke had endured the interrogation, as it gave the jounin the information he sought without inspiring him to inquire further.

Sasuke did not wish to disclose the presence of another bond. This pain was his own to endure.

x

There was a fortress built on an outcrop overlooking the quay.

It usually housed the garrison force of hundred and fifty to two hundred men, mostly soldiers, plus servants and staff. At this moment Itachi was the only living person within the complex. He did not intend to stay too long – the smell would become unbearable soon enough despite the cold weather – but there was something hidden inside this building that belonged to him.

Seven years of searching, and Itachi had finally found it: the incontrovertible proof, the explanation he had wanted – the validation he had never needed, but which nonetheless bolstered his confidence.

He did not believe in fate, but life did seem to happen to the Uchiha in seven-year cycles.

Which reminded him that Sasuke was now the age that Itachi had been at the time of the Purge. Perhaps Itachi should go and see how his little brother was doing (and ensure that Orochimaru would not dare come within a league of him ever again).

But first he would finish discovering his Clan’s past. He faced the ghostly image of an Uchiha standing on top of the square-based pyramid that was the device itself. The figure was about three inches tall and wore an odd ceremonial robe; it was formed of several directed rays of light. It was capable of interactive communication.

Itachi had never encountered anything like it. The treasury had contained several unique objects fished out of the sea, which put together gave the impression of a vessel not meant for _sea_ -faring.

“That’s some weird shit,” Kisame informed him needlessly, letting himself into the late Commander’s room (which Itachi had chosen for his temporary lodgings) as though he hadn’t been off ‘taking a break’ for the past week. To his credit, he went straight for the adjoining bathroom.

Itachi concurred with his opinion. Opening the repository had taken him days, and it turned out to be a technological device so far ahead of the current cutting-edge technology that he had no concept for it other than _magic_. Aggravating as the disparity in advancement was, it had the amazing effect of the repository _learning Itachi’s language_ simply from listening to his speak.

And then promptly _translating itself_.

“I bet you were this boring as a child, too,” grumbled Kisame some half an hour later, coming back into the room, trailing water everywhere. Kisame seemed to hold the firm belief that towels were against religion. _Which_ religion he had not specified when Itachi inquired. “A total bookworm. Cuter, though.”

Itachi’s lips twitched. “Biologically I am still a child. My race ages slower.”

Kisame snorted, falling upon the remains of Itachi’s barely touched lunch. “That why you’re so puny? Still waiting for that last growth spurt?”

Itachi nodded. He personally did not have a problem with the fact that Kisame could probably carry him around in one arm, but oftentimes people commented on his ‘baby-face’. Granted, they usually died swiftly and efficiently right thereafter.

“Never seen you play before. You should enjoy your childhood,” Kisame said mockingly.

Itachi smiled (anyone who had a problem with him expressing emotion was either dead or could figuratively kiss his posterior) and went back to his utterly _fascinating_ research.

“ _Peace and long life_ ,” said the tiny, ghostly Uchiha. A traditional greeting advocating _peace_ , of all things.

It was akin to a sad jest – after a long battle against his Clan, his Clan’s traditions and himself, Itachi was finally discovering that his so-called ‘absurd’ pacifism was in fact in his blood. He had had ancestors who had thought along the same lines and believed in the same ideas as himself.

Back when he had been a child by civilian standards, when the Clan was still alive, there was a formal farewell his Father used to employ whenever Itachi was leaving for a mission: ‘Succeed or die hard.’ Itachi could not help but surmise from the structure of the salutation that it was, by some twisted evolution, derived from the ancient ‘live long and prosper’.

Itachi found the original version superior on all accounts.

x

Naruto reeled from a sucker punch (so _that_ was what three ‘times human strength’ meant), didn’t manage to catch his balance and flopped into the dirt. It felt like a line of fire burning along the side of his skull. Broken bones started knitting themselves back together almost immediately, but it still hurt badly enough that he struggled to just catch his breath.

“Must you keep restraining me, idiot?” Sasuke snapped, but at least he did not move in to finish the job. “We have both seen how this village insists on limiting my resources.”

Okay, people _were_ arseholes to Sasuke, but Sasuke was a bastard to everybody just because, and then turned around and whinged that he didn’t have enough privileges even though he was obviously _better_ than anyone.

Naruto rolled his eyes.

“Remaining in Konoha at this point is illogical,” Sasuke proclaimed, but Naruto still sort of thought he was just trying to convince himself.

There were tiny specks left of the deteriorated seal, glowing kinda nasty purple. Sasuke should have remained in that coma thingy longer, only then there were the preliminary fights and Kakashi-sensei insisting on training _right away_ and an invasion and Naruto was sick of people putting everything else before Sasuke (and before Naruto, too, but he was more resigned to that – that was just how things had always been).

“And logic is everything to you, huh?” quipped Shikamaru, just as Sasuke was about to run off. “It’s so very logical to keep hunting your brother-”

“ _Chidori_!”

The technique didn’t land. Sasuke stopped mid-launch, went down hard with a twisted ankle, melted a patch of earth into a weird glassy substance with his precious ball of lightning… and then proceeded to sit up and disarm himself thoroughly.

Once he was weaponless, he tied his legs together, let Shikamaru tie up his wrists behind his back, and then jerked. His eyes went wide in an instinctual fear response, and he lost balance, falling to the side (limbs tied together would do that to you).

Naruto heaved himself to all four, gingerly tried to stand – his bones held him up fine – and then ambled over to check that Sasuke wouldn’t suffocate with his face in the grass (he might have just chosen to gnaw on it in impotent rage instead).

“Your logic is based on a faulty premise, Uchiha,” said Shikamaru, scowling and irritably scratching at his neck. “If you want a truly _logical_ result, you cannot decide to arbitrarily exclude factors that would disprove your hypotheses.”

Chouji princess-carried Ino over. Naruto had always thought Ino was equal parts creepy and stupid, ‘cause of how she acted around Sasuke, but for once she had been really cool in the fight.

“There is no surviving female of my species,” Sasuke snarled after Naruto pulled him up to a more or less sitting position. “Orochimaru is the last chance for our survival.”

Shikamaru sighed very heavily, like he always did when he just couldn’t believe how stupid the people around him were being. “You might get a generation or two, but you won’t have sustainable population. Limited genetic sample will inevitably lead to damaged offspring.”

“What?” Naruto blurted. Thankfully, his jaw was mostly in one piece by now.

Sakura wiped her bloodied nose with her bandaged forearm and stared at the tied-up Sasuke for a bit, before she looked at Naruto with something almost like tolerance. “Orochimaru can clone Sasuke a girl-Uchiha, but she’ll be his sister. Their children would…” She grimaced.

“That’s terrible.” Naruto pressed his free hand to his stomach – not like he was pregnant, but like there was a demon in his belly. Still, nobody but Sasuke knew about the demon, and Shikamaru looked at Naruto really weirdly.

Loads of things in their lives were terrible. But Sasuke wasn’t completely alone, and if Orochimaru tried to come for him again, or tried to sweet-talk him into leaving Konoha again, people were going to kick his arse.

Naruto leading the charge.

Also, as soon as they were back in the village, Sasuke was going back into coma so the seal would die off completely.

“Yes,” Sakura agreed, sighing wistfully, “it is. I really wanted a cute pointy-eared baby.”

x

“You know what is off with Tobi,” Kisame realised.

Itachi nodded. He sat more comfortably at the edge of the pier and surveyed the roiling expanse of dark grey water. The fortress he had cleaned out could barely be seen in the distance. “It is to do with my Clan’s… peculiarities.”

“There’s a lot of those,” Kisame countered, with a measure of humour to lighten the atmosphere. “I’m blue, and you make me feel normal in comparison.”

Itachi appreciated the sentiment, even though it had no effect on his discomfort. There was no Clan left, so why could he not overcome this proscription? Who was there that could persecute him for breaking the taboo?

Or was he simply embarrassed, because his explanation would make it obvious that he shared this condition, however unlikely it was that he would live long enough to be subjected to it?

“There is a… biological imperative,” he said haltingly. “A… mating drive.” The words were distasteful. Itachi found the entire notion of sex distasteful, and the idea of sex to which he would not consent filled him with horror.

“Oh fuck,” muttered Kisame. “No pun intended.”

Itachi shrugged. “It sets on at the time of full maturity, which averages around thirty-five years for us. Our life-span is longer than… human. Unless, of course, outside influences shorten it.” He felt the corners of his mouth rise. Funereal humour – he could just imagine his Father scoffing at the illogic of it.

But then, his Father had been a cretin.

“When the Time comes, body chemistry changes and unless the mating drive is satisfied, the alterations usually result in death.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Kisame breathed.

Itachi did not call him on it. “There is a complication-”

“Another one?” Kisame came to crouch on the pier behind Itachi, close enough to touch him if he extended his arm. Fortunately, he contained himself.

“The mating requires extensive mental contact – which in turn requires mental compatibility. This is the reason why Uchiha used to be betrothed as children. Bonds were established early to ensure that the partners would fit well in adulthood.” The system did not account for the high mortality of shinobi, but it was a tradition, and far be it from Uchiha to break traditions, no matter how stupid they were (the traditions _or_ the Uchiha). “Still, sometimes exceptions happen. Sometimes a bond can be established if the participants wish for it and try hard enough.”

Such an action carried risk of incurring the wrath of the Clan Head and the Elders by eschewing the mandated childhood bond, and there had been an effort to squash all the information regarding this practice, but Uchiha felt deeply; they found lovers, within or without the Clan, and occasionally discovered mental compatibility with them.

Droplets of water hit Itachi’s face, carried by the rising wind. Soon enough it would be time to go and seek new accommodations, but he wished for this conversation – for this _topic_ – to remain in this place once they left.

He closed his eyes and admitted: “And sometimes there is an aberration.”

“Are you in my head?”

Never let it be said that Kisame wasn’t an intelligent man.

“No, but I probably could be if I wanted to.”

“Fuck.”

“No, thank you,” Itachi said, with the express purpose of making Kisame laugh. He was rewarded with an ironically dry chuckle. “It is a warrior bond. Most come to be over prolonged alliance, forged by mutual understanding, and do not preclude traditional mating bonds.” But they did carry a stigma, and most Uchiha were in possession of large and aggressive egos – few would contend with a spouse that would not put them first. “There is also a legend of some bonds simply… _transpiring_ when enemies collide on battlefield. The repository had accounts of alliances forged on the bases of such bonds.”

“Like, soulmate bullshit?”

Itachi inclined his head. “Crude, but not inaccurate.”

Kisame moved forwards until he was almost level with Itachi, and could observe his face from the side. “And you think this happened to Tobi.”

“Yes.” Itachi did not know with certainly which of the Senju brothers it had been – but a Telsu bond would have explained Madara’s uncharacteristic insistence to pursue friendship with Senju Hashirama. “Otherwise he would not have been rejected by his chosen mate when his Time came. He survived but… his mind burnt.”

After a long while of silence, Kisame said: “Hey, Itachi? You’re not my type, but I’ll fuck you if it saves your life.”

Itachi did not even try to suppress the smile.


	4. This Simple Feeling

“Had a good day at work, huh?” snarked Kisame.

Itachi paused in the doorway and took stock of himself. No, he had given no outward indication of his state of mind. That meant that Kisame was attuned to him finely enough to discern his mood through other means.

Fanciful as the hypothesis for how he did it sounded, Itachi carefully shelved it for later.

“I killed Orochimaru,” he reported in lieu of commenting on the unexpected perceptiveness. “Disappointingly, that does not translate into meaning that Orochimaru is presently dead.”

“I hate the immortal-ish ones,” Kisame muttered quietly, even though they were far away from Hidan and Kakuzu and Sasori and anyone else who might have taken that statement personally. “You can’t even take pleasure in your work; they get up again and try to fuck you up back.”

“Moreover, their personalities are uniformly disagreeable.”

Kisame finally laughed. “Look at you, Itachi, all miffed!”

Itachi was not miffed. Itachi was _incensed_. Orochimaru had tried to abduct his little brother, and that crossed all lines. Itachi would see that abomination _dead for good_.

x

Tracking down the rogue Princess turned into this whole production with interfering Sages and overpowered medics and a Sound team that was supposed to abduct Sasuke for Orochimaru attacking them.

And it would have been fine, except that just as Naruto pounded that weird potty-mouthed girl into so much red paste, Sasuke got himself stabbed through the chest by the bone guy’s bone.

Sakura screamed.

Naruto paused by her side just long enough to pat her back. “It’s okay. He’ll be fine.”

“He was stabbed through the heart, moron!” Sakura screeched at Naruto’s back.

Naruto flopped down on Sasuke’s other side from the obnoxious Princess (if she weren’t blonde and red-blooded, she could have been an Uchiha herself). “It’s fine. We all know the Uchiha are heartless.”

Sakura moaned. “S-sasuke-kun…”

The Princess was kneeling next to the bastard and sending chakra to the wound while Naruto very, very carefully pulled the long, fragile bone out of the wound. It was sharp, so it went easily, but the Princess kept muttering at him to ‘slow down, slow down’ and he didn’t actually want Sasuke to drown in his blood or anything so it was a little scary.

Finally the bone was extracted, the wound closed, and the Princess sat on her haunches and wiped her sweating forehead. “Been a while since I’ve worked on one of you jaundiced folks.”

“Hn.”

“Sasuke means thank you,” Naruto translated.

“How?!” Sakura cried, crouching next to Sasuke and putting a cup of water to his lips. “That wound should have been fatal!”

The Princess snorted. “If it hit the heart – don’t know, I might have had a chance to save him, but no guarantee. But, girl, Uchiha hearts are here.” She placed her hand gently on Sasuke’s side, even though his shirt was soaked through with green blood.

“Urgh!” Sakura refilled the cup, thrust it at Sasuke again so hard that some of the water splashed on his face, and somehow managed to ignore the withering glare he aimed at her in retaliation. “That’s it! I’m specialising as a medic, because _somebody_ has to learn this stuff to keep the last _loyal_ Uchiha alive!”

x

“You!” bellowed a familiar voice.

A shape of black, red and orange stormed up to corridor, and Itachi found himself slammed into a wall.

It was hard to tell with the mask, but Itachi had a strong feeling this person that was confronting him was _not_ Madara. The other katra, then? How would it have gained sufficient prominence to assert itself over its parasite?

“Tobi?” Itachi inquired.

“Killing the children was unnecessary!” Tobi howled. “It would have far been more _expedient_ to kill Orochimaru!”

Itachi took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Who would have taken care of them? I had to leave, and who was there left to trust? Danzo would have taken responsibility for them, and that would have been yet worse than Orochimaru.”

“There must have been another way!” cried Tobi, before dissolving into heaving sobs. His mask thunked down onto Itachi’s shoulder. Tobi shook, but still held Itachi in place, almost as if they were embracing, sharing horror and grief.

Itachi did not feel horror, but he did admit to some grief. The Purge had been necessary, and what was necessary was never unwise, but wisdom far too often stood in direct opposition to happiness or morality.

Suddenly the two-katra stilled.

A second later he was standing three yards away, smoothing down his cloak. “I apologise for that lapse,” he said stiffly. “I must go and meditate.”

Itachi was not alone in watching him swiftly walk away. Sasori, Deidara and Kisame had been drawn here by the commotion, and now stared after their Leader, who turned out unexpectedly more psychotic than they were used to him being.

“Cuckoo for the clock, yeah,” opined Deidara.

Itachi, however, was rather intrigued.

x

It was around Naruto’s fifteenth birthday when he finally managed to get a peek at Sakura’s sparkly notebook of secrets.

He did it by employing an unconventional method: he asked nicely. “Umm… can I _please_ have a look?”

And Sakura sighed, but replied: “Yes, alright, _fine_. If you damage it, I’ll make you rewrite it _exactly_ as it is.”

“I won’t, I won’t!” Naruto promised, and his hands shook a little as he accepted the super secret sparkly notebook of Sakura.

He opened it slowly – this was the best excuse for drama! he had wanted to have a look for years! this was exciting! – and with his heart in his throat read the dedication on the first page. _To my best friend, love, Ino-chan_.

Aww.

Too bad something went wrong. And he didn’t even have to ask _what_ went wrong, ‘cause the second page was all covered with U-Sa + Ha-Sa in hearts, mostly drawn red or pink. It was revolting.

Naruto quickly leafed on. There were some diary-like confessions and rants (all Sasuke-related), but they slowly changed into a sorta stalking journal with some small hateful notations about Naruto himself. Those gradually disappeared, replaced instead with underlined and highlighted _facts_ about the bastard.

At some point Sakura decided to begin to catalogue all she knew about Uchiha Sasuke.

Some were even things that Naruto didn’t know (like how Sasuke always left the cashew nuts in the nut mix for last – that was a _creep alert!_ level of detail).

And those observations gradually gave way to medical facts, most notably differences between humans and Uchiha and speculations about which treatments might work and which would be harmful. There was a whole section on poisons and their effects, which was mostly full of angry purple question marks.

Scattered in the left-over bits of pages were occasional doodles, although Naruto could have probably done better. Sakura really didn’t have talent for drawing. You could tell the subject was supposed to be an Uchiha, but only ‘cause of the ears and the eyebrows.

No one had eyebrows like Sasuke.

Naruto mostly knew what Sasuke meant to say ‘cause Sasuke sort of telegraphed everything with those two pointy caterpillars.

Like right now – bastard’s left eyebrow twitched, meaning Naruto should get a move on and feed him already, or he’d go hangry on some unsuspecting flora.

“Yeah, yeah…” Naruto snorted. “I’ll have your rabbit food done in a minute, cashew-nut-nut.”

Sasuke’s right eyebrow went quarter of the way up, and that meant something that couldn’t be repeated in polite company.

x

“They were under the impression that I brainwashed you,” said Itachi.

The Akatsuki base burned behind them, shedding light on the path in the middle of the night.

Kisame hefted Samehada higher and scoffed. “Brainwashed? You cracked my mind wide open and showed me more of the truth than anyone should ever have to see. If that’s brainwashing… then thank you, Itachi.”

“My pleasure.”

“What next?” Kisame inquired.

Itachi inclined his head and smiled. “How do you feel about kidnapping?”

x

Sasuke discovered the fact that Naruto had been abducted on the day after it happened – the day after Kakashi had been assigned a solo mission, which was patently not a coincidence – due to the note pinned to his kitchen table with a kunai.

There were no threats and no demands. It was simply a map of the Wind country with a place marked by an X.

x

“Can’t I kill him a little?” pleaded Kisame, succumbing to boredom thirteen minutes before Itachi’s most conservative estimate.

Itachi had accounted for the monotony of the desert, but he had hoped for more vivacious protests on Naruto-kun’s part. There was barely any verbal abuse. So far the boy had proven disappointing in his placidity.

“No,” Itachi said, gently putting pressure on his thumb nail with his teeth. He was not going to bite. He was _not_. No matter how nervous he was beginning to feel.

“I’m feeling inspired,” Kisame mused. “Let me get creative.”

“Killing is not art,” Itachi rebuked softly, thinking of the disparate definitions of beauty, and of those subjects that inspired emotion in individuals. If not for Deidara’s self-delusion, he never would have been inspired to waste a thought on the topic. Art, he felt, required something additional – an element of creation, perhaps. But there was an undeniable requirement of skill to shinobi existence, so he admitted: “It is craft.”

“And you are the master craftsman,” agreed Kisame, with shades of ‘yes, dear’ in his tone. He looked at their captive and then at Itachi with an unspoken suggestion to take this opportunity to disseminate intelligence.

Itachi considered it. He had once killed two hundred and eighty-three Uchiha over the course of forty minutes within a shinobi village without alerting anyone. The world considered him to be a psychopathic maniac, which was sometimes useful, but on the whole annoying.

He nodded to Kisame; pleasure washed over his mind in response. Acknowledging their bond must have strengthened it more than expected.

“The Clan’s decision to abandon our Ancestor Suraku’s philosophy and return to our warmongering past was-” Illogical, yes, but Itachi was not interested in parroting his Father. “-stupid. They had to be stopped. I regret that it was necessary, but I accepted the responsibility willingly.”

Naruto-kun was listening. Very good. Pretending to surrender and using the opportunity to gather intelligence on the enemy was a bold and valid strategy. He made a worthy companion for Sasuke.

Kisame noticed the boy’s bemusement. “Arseholes took advantage of his militant pacifism and his love for his brother,” he translated for Naruto-kun’s sake, and leant down to cut the boy’s bindings.

Itachi’s eyebrows drew together in annoyance. “This was not part of the plan.”

“I’m changing the plan.” Kisame grinned unrepentantly. His new-found initiative was also a consequence of the bond; Itachi never should have let him discover how much he enjoyed these games.

“Whoa,” Naruto muttered, awed. “It’s like you’re us. I mean, Sasuke does this thing, too, and I always have to beat the stupid out of him-”

“It is unlikely that you have the prowess to best my brother in taijutsu,” Itachi said mildly.

Naruto scoffed, climbing to his feet and rubbing his wrists to restore circulation. “Who said anything about taijutsu? I just steal his books and smack him over the head with them. He always gets this expression- yeah, exactly that expression.”

Kisame laughed. “Yeah, okay, the little Uchiha’s close enough now. And he’ll be less stab-happy this way – you know he will, Itachi, you just like making things difficult for yourself-”

“I appreciate a challenge.”

“-but I know that this is important to you. So don’t fuck it up out of vanity.” He pointed to the North. “Konoha’s that way, pipsqueak. Toddle off.”

x

Kakashi knew this mission was full of shit ever since Tsunade-sama handed the scroll to him with a skeptical look and a ‘this stinks to high heavens and they asked for you personally, so it’s definitely a trap’.

It was novel – and nice – to be forewarned about these things.

On the other hand, it had made him complacent. He thought he had been warned, but he hadn’t been warned anywhere near enough.

“Hatake Kakashi,” said the man waiting inside the cave.

There were seals activated, and probably a Doton jutsu of some kind. Kakashi stood rooted to the spot like a statue of a confused shinobi, and then nudged his hitai-ate up.

Nope. No improvement. He was still seeing a familiar man in an unfamiliar dire need of a haircut. “…Obito?!”

“In a matter of speaking,” said the Uchiha, stepping into light so that the prominent scarring of the right side of his face was clearly displayed. The scars – and the grafts – presumably continued down the side of the whole body… they must have… when Kakashi left Obito in that cave, the damage had been too extensive to heal.

Was this a zombie? A puppet made out of Obito’s corpse?

Well, those sounded like perfectly reasonable theories, but Kakashi had that something in the back of his mind, and right now it was registering as very near and very angry.

“Why now?” Kakashi asked. “Why make yourself known after all this time?” Did Obito know Kakashi was still… invested? Had he been watching from afar – had he interfered in Kakashi’s life?

“The blood fever has begun,” the Uchiha replied cryptically. “It is a condition tied to this body.” (Possession, then, Kakashi’s brain noted and filed away.) “Its Time will come soon, and I have no one who could satisfy its need for mental connection. My host, however, does.”

Curious. The only other Uchiha left were Itachi and Sasuke, one of whom had killed his betrothed and the other of whom had never been betrothed at all. Obito’s fiancée would have been killed years ago, too.

“He never told you, did he?” said the person in control of Obito’s body. “There were tales – few of them written down, and even those framed as mere anecdotes. He might not have known.”

There was a dramatic pause, and eventually Kakashi understood that he was supposed to encourage his captor to continue soliloquising. “Tell me what?” he ventured.

“Sometimes, when two eminently suited warriors encounter one another in battle, a spontaneous bond may form between them.”

So, Kakashi apparently was not insane. Probably. At least not for imagining Obito’s presence in his mind for all these years.

What a relief.

“I have no wish to burn alive again. If I must relinquish control of the body for a short time, then so be it.”

If this entity ceded control to Obito, Kakashi would make damn sure it would never get it back.

x

“What the fuck is that?!” was the first thing Naruto said when he ran – almost literally – into the rescue team, which consisted of Sasuke and Sakura and an extremely annoyed ninken (the one Kakashi-sensei usually left behind to babysit his students).

“My nictitating membrane,” Sasuke said dryly.

Heh, _dryly_ , get it? On account of it being a desert, with sand and dunes and stuff and most importantly no water.

“…what?” Naruto croaked, and then recited poems about Sakura’s wonderfulness inside his head, ‘cause she handed him a flask and he gulped down the sweet, sweet water.

“A second eyelid,” Sasuke explained reluctantly. It clearly hurt him to use normal-people words. Poor bastard.

“Why’s it under the first one?” Naruto inquired after the flask was empty (sorry, Sakura-chan!) and he was beginning to feel like he was alive instead of just a reanimated desiccated mummy.

“Where the hell else would you put it, idiot?” Sakura snapped, finishing the notation she was writing in her sparkly notebook, and then glared at him for drinking all the water.

Naruto looked around them. “Kakashi-sensei didn’t come?”

“This is not actually a _sanctioned_ rescue mission,” Sasuke grumbled at him, but he pulled his glove off and pressed his fingers to Naruto’s elbow to check that he really was alright, which meant that he hadn’t been just worried but more like shit-scared-out-of-his-mind, and Naruto almost melted from the low-key buzz of Sasuke giving an honest damn about him. “Sakura merely _still_ insists on following me around everywhere.”

“Thanks, guys,” Naruto said, choked-up, beaming at them harder and brighter than the sun. “Can we go home now?”

Sasuke stepped away and put his glove back on. “You are free to go wherever you wish. I am going to finish this once and for all. Do not follow me.”

Before anyone could protest this idiocy, Sasuke had already stabbed a kunai into Naruto’s stomach and was running off in the direction where Naruto had come from.

“Don’t-” Sakura cut herself off. She shook her head, and then moved quickly to where Naruto was kneeling with a blade stuck through his belly.

Naruto met her eye, and they shared a commiserating look. “That… bastard…”

Kakashi’s ninken just sat in the sand and watched them very judgmentally.

x

“You don’t believe you’re an alien?” asked Kakashi. _He_ had always known that Obito was an alien. At first only figuratively, granted, but once he had done some research, it was fairly obvious in the literal sense as well.

“That is a step up from being called a demon,” the Uchiha said sardonically.

Kakashi gave him a dry look. “You are the _only_ green-blooded life form on this planet. Even if you decided to ignore evolution in favour of creationism, _how_ does it make sense to create a single vertebrate with copper-based metalloprotein into a world of animals with iron-based oxygen-transport?”

“Well, when you put it like that.” The Uchiha let his gunbai rest on the ground and his shoulders relax.

And swung a tanto at Kakashi’s neck.

Kakashi dodged. He dodged the next strike, too, and by then he already knew they were having a high-stakes spar instead of a real fight to the death. He struck at the shoulder joint and kicked at the knee-

The strike was blocked, the kick redirected, and Kakashi just barely avoided a kunai slash aimed at his kidneys.

He ducked away, pulled a kunai of his own, and threw himself into a battle that felt almost like a challenge from Gai, only with an unspecified promise of a reward at the end. He didn’t know why they were fighting, only that they had to-

They had to strike and subdue the prey and prove themselves-

The Uchiha managed to land a kick in Kakashi’s side, but only because Kakashi was stabbing at his throat – missing the jugular by less than quarter of an inch and leaving behind a thin trickle of green. A punch to the jaw (that his opponent allowed to land) carried the Uchiha down to the floor of the cave, and Kakashi followed, discarding the kunai for _grappling_ -

The Uchiha hit his head on descent, and by the time Kakashi landed astride on his chest, it was a different person that stared up at him.

“ _Telsu_ …” Obito croaked.

Kakashi threw his head back and laughed, with abandon, with relief and maybe with some elation, too. “Welcome back, moron.”

Then he was grabbed and de-masked and kissed and … really it went downhill from there.

x

“Gloves, little brother?” Itachi said instead of a ‘hello’.

“They were a gift.” Sasuke had striven to regulate his emotions all his life, but at this moment – looking upon the impassive face of his brother who had murdered their clansmen and now had the temerity to approach Sasuke civilly – he knew he would never achieve true logical existence.

The rage that welled within him threatened to choke him. His muscles locked; if Itachi attacked in the next instance, Sasuke would not have been capable of resisting.

This… this creature truly felt nothing. It seemed to be living a pleasant, calm life – an exceedingly easy one without the burden of moral choices. _Pathetic_. Sasuke would not lower himself to that level – if that meant he would have to continue contending himself with emotion, then that was what he would do.

Naruto somehow made it bearable.

That was, in essence, why Sasuke had come to this place. “Why did you let Naruto go?”

He had failed to protect Naruto. He had resigned himself to having lost him, and departed from Konoha with the intention to avenge his loss and simultaneously also avenge his Clan. Encountering Naruto, alive and well, before he had arrived at the appointed place had shattered his tenuous self-control (who would have thought _relief_ was far more difficult to suppress than rage or grief?).

“I did no such thing,” replied Itachi, nonchalant as though he had not just held a life in his hands and thrown it away. “Kisame acted against my instructions.”

An absurd excuse.

“You could have stopped him. Easily.”

“Such faith in your big brother, Sasuke…” Itachi pulled off the uniform cloak and deftly folded it, before depositing it on a nearby boulder. “I did not care to stop him. I was never interested in Naruto-kun beyond what he meant to you. I surmised – correctly – that if I alerted you to how easy it would have been for me to remove Naruto from you, you might be more inclined to accept my invitation. Sit.” He beckoned toward a flat rock. “The amenities are deplorable, but this shall suffice for the duration of our conversation.”

Sasuke did not move. His breathing patterns had stabilised and his muscles relaxed sufficiently that he was ready for battle now. “We are past words. You took up violence to make your point; I am here to answer you in kind.”

“There is something I must give you before you can avenge our Clan.”

“I need nothing from you.”

“Perhaps you do not require it, but it is something you deserve,” insisted the murderer. “The truth. Or, at the very least, _a_ truth. It is less than you are owed.”

Sasuke knew what was about to happen – knew it in his katra.

Itachi’s raised hand, fingers extended, coming at his face.

Sasuke reached for the calm within him, for the dark quiet place built over days upon days of meditation, and when the fingers connected, he was ready.

“My mind to your mind, brother…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so, it’s open-ended. I figure the brothers will establish a reluctant alliance to get rid of Orochimaru and Danzo and Madara and whomever else that crosses them. Kakashi and Obito will live happily ever after. Itachi either dies or the combined forces of Tsunade and Sakura manage to heal his illness. Either way, there won’t be any more pointy-eared babies; the Uchiha will die out with this generation.
> 
> If anyone feels like having fun with it, go ahead. Blanket endorsement of Vulcan!Uchiha anywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: crack, weirdness, implied non-con situations (pon farr), mentioned child abuse and neglect, serious mental problems, canon-typical violence, murder, actually straight-up genocide, implied human experimentation, some out-of-characterness, unreliable narrators


End file.
